When it comes to GM (genetically modified) food and in this case, wheat, Paul Hetherington, Baking Association of Canada CEO says consumer choice and feedback is essential.

“Are we going to be finding a situation where the consumers and as a result their interests that we’re going to need 50% of the existing crop to be conventional?” Hetherington said in a video. “25%? 75%? We don’t know.”

It can also affect the transportation logistics of how the grain is transported.

In January, Hetherington made a presentation entitled “The world as it is, not as we may want it to be” during the Wheat Grower 45th Annual Convention.

In his presentation, he described how 84% of people who participated in a survey about food attributes prefer their food based on value for money and nutritional value, while only 19% based their food purchases on organic production.

“The farm producer groups are in a much better place with regards to addressing these types of issues with consumers than we are as industry,” Hetherington said. “The consumers at large give a strong sense of credibility to farm groups.”

Hetherington also discussed the impact social media plays in this conversation. It allows for countless avenues of information to be accessed and in his presentation shows there’s been a decline in confidence in the safety of Canadian-produced food as social media usage changes.